DEV Community: Will G

Phonics ESL - English sounds review tool

Will G — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 00:56:42 +0000

Just finished a small React project and I'm hoping to get some feedback here on Dev! I built this to improve my React skills and to try out TailwindCSS.

Check it out here.
See the source code here.

The tool is based around Jolly phonics which is a great English education book series that I use in my day job. The idea behind this project is for people to be easily able to review English phonics on any smart device.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Mobile

Cover Photo by Jerry Wang

Videos auto-playing on Dev.to

Will G — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 06:46:39 +0000

Curious to see the community's thoughts on auto-playing videos in posts on dev.to. Personally I'm not a fan and would like some way to disable it within dev.to's settings.

I appreciate the videos themselves but sometimes when I'm on Dev it's not the appropriate environment to watch videos.

What do you think?

The future of Podcasts, Joe Rogan + Spotify

Will G — Wed, 27 May 2020 01:24:48 +0000

So I've just started getting into podcasts and I'm curious what people think about Spotify's latest purchase of the Joe Rogan Experience?

https://www.theverge.com/21265005/spotify-joe-rogan-experience-podcast-deal-apple-gimlet-media-ringer

What do you think about Spotify's future plans? Is it the start of a new podcast era?

One thing I'd like is that if I pay for Spotify Premium there should be no ads in my podcasts just like the current Spotify experience.

Portable NodeJS without administrator access

Will G — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 12:51:51 +0000

So you want to use NodeJS on a portable flash drive?
Or maybe just in a non-restricted directory?

If you are reading this then you may have gone through the following as I have.

Attempted to use NodeJS Portable by Crazy Max which fails due to the company proxy server and not being able to set the proxy before the installation of Node.
Attempted to use NodeJS Portable by Gareth Flowers which installs correctly but the Node version is too outdated to use ReactJS or similar frameworks.
Attempted to use nvm-windows which after following the instructions given in the README doesn't work because nvm use 13.8.0 requires you to enter a username and password for Window's User Account Control.

If you are still reading then here is my working (very hacky) solution to get NodeJS portable!

I used a portable version of Cmder but I imagine any terminal program where you can add to the PATH is fine.

Install Cmder in your desired location.
Download nvm-noinstall.zip from the latest release.
Extract the contents of nvm-noinstall.zip into the bin folder inside of the portable Cmder folder.
Navigate to the bin folder in Cmder and run install.md
When asked to enter the absolute path use your Cmder bin folder. (In my case, for some reason the settings.txt isn't created in the bin folder but instead is made at root of my usb i.e. E:/ ).
Install the version of node you want i.e. nvm install latest (Make sure to still be inside of the bin folder in your terminal program).
Wait until node and npm have finished installing.
Inside the bin folder there should be a folder containing the latest node version e.g. v13.8.0.
Copy the absolute path to that folder. e.g. E:\PortableApps\CmderPortable\bin\v13.8.0.
Add this to your existing path in Cmder's environment settings. e.g. set "PATH=E:\PortableApps\CmderPortable\bin\v13.8.0;%PATH%"
Make sure you are still inside your bin folder. Run nvm use v13.8.0 or your chosen node version. You can close the username and password window both times without entering anything. It should tell you Now using node v13.8.0 (64-bit).
Close and open Cmder and you should have access to node, npm and npx 😄.

I have also posted this information on the nvm-windows issue requesting for a portable version #363

Let me know if you have any alternative solutions. I would be happy to read them in the comments.

Happy coding! 🥳

P.S. I'd like to start the habit of sharing the music that I am listening to while writing up my posts. Today's music is a part of a set by South African super collector DJ Okapi. Check it out here. https://www.mixcloud.com/radioradioradioradio/dj-okapi-radio-radio/